NY officials want stimulus money for high-speed rail

State officials want to use federal stimulus money to pursue high-speed rail between Albany and Buffalo, since they acknowledged Wednesday that they lack the funding to begin to construct such a system.

It’s still unclear whether New York will receive even a slice of the $8 billion pot of high-speed rail funding included in the $787 billion stimulus. The final rules and regulations governing the funding haven’t been issued yet.

High-speed rail has long been discussed in New York, with potential routes running from Albany to New York City and from Albany to Buffalo. On Wednesday, state officials again lauded the potential economic benefits of such a system.

“That would bring assistance to regions of this state that were suffering before this country went into recession. This would create new communities—it does everything,” said Gov. David Paterson at a public meeting about the stimulus.

“The necessity of high-speed rail in this state is greater than ever,” Paterson continued. “It’s going to have to be our priority.”

Added Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens): “That’s long-term economic stimulus. The moment high-speed rail becomes a reality priority, what it does is, it makes these cities throughout the state competitive.”

The problem is money.

Cities across the country—including Los Angeles, Las Vegas and President Obama’s home city of Chicago—are lobbying for some of the $8 billion in high-speed rail funds. And, it’s unlikely that the state can foot the bill for any immediate high-speed rail work, given its record-high $14 billion deficit.

Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, a downstate Republican, cited estimates that a high-speed rail line from Albany to Buffalo would cost more than $10 billion.

“I don’t want to raise hopes that we can’t fulfill,” Paterson said in response to Skelos’ remarks.

“Where do I get $10 billion from? I can’t answer that. My question now is, where do I get $14 billion?” he said, referring to the state’s deficit.

Instead, aides to Paterson said, the state would use any high-speed rail stimulus money to unclog bottlenecks between Albany and Buffalo that slow down trains and decrease the number of on-time arrivals and departures.

“Our years of work now put us in place to take advantage of what the federal government is finally being serious about,” said Timothy Gilchrist, who is coordinating New York’s stimulus spending.

The high-speed rail talk comes as the state Senate’s high-speed rail task force shuts down this week, since it has exhausted the $5 million for rail studies and payroll that Senate Republicans allocated in 2005.

Paterson’s proposed 2009-10 budget does not extend funding for the task force.

The state is currently competing for other rail-related stimulus funding, such as a $60 million project to build a second track on an 18-mile stretch of Amtrak’s Empire Corridor.

The single track between the Rensselaer and Schenectady train stations creates a bottleneck because it is used by passenger and slower-speed freight trains, officials say.